Well, well! Look who's come crawling back!

Poxyshamrock

Aer Lingus has announced that it is resuming its Shannon Heathrow service from 29 March next year.


At a news conference in Dublin, the airline said it would operate double daily flights to and from Shannon and Heathrow.

The Minister for Transport, Noel Dempsey, has welcomed the decision.

AdvertisementHe said: 'I am particularly pleased that Aer Lingus has finally decided to recommence this important service from Shannon airport to London Heathrow.

'This link is strategically important for the Mid-West both from an aviation policy and a regional development perspective.'


The decision comes two working days after Aer Lingus appeared at the Oireachtas Transport Committee, where members of the board were strongly advised to reopen the airline's Shannon Heathrow route. The route was closed last January amid fierce criticism.

Ryanair had promised to reopen the route should its €525m bid for Aer Lingus be successful.

But launching the route today, Aer Lingus Chief Executive Dermot Mannion said the airline had not bowed to political pressure. He said that the route is being reopened becaue of new arrangements with unions on staff costs and the Shannon Airport Authority on airport charges. He said he hoped the route would be profitable by the end of its first year.

Dermot Mannion said that at a time when the rest of the industry is suffering quite significantly, Aer Lingus will be profitable at a pre-tax level in both 2008 and 2009 and that the airline does not need Ryanair to stay in business. He said Ryanair's bid for Aer Lingus big would fail.

The airline also said this morning that it is contacting all shareholders to say the Ryanair takeover offer is 'opportunistic, unsolicited and unwelcome'.


Aer Lingus directors say the Ryanair offer 'significantly undervalues' Aer Lingus and the board is recommending that Aer Lingus shareholders take no action in relation to the offer.

All the same, I'm delighted that they're coming back.

Declan30

It is a strange Decision all the same from Aer lingus.When u think of all the hype about them moving to Belfast and telling shannon that the route was not profitable.

Mac 3

I wonder has the change in value of sterling got anything to do with it..

billy the squid

hardly. The two slots are coming from Dublin Airport, not Belfast.

Berty

Dublin airport has a flight leaving for Heathrow every single hour. They are probably struggling to put bums on all of those seats.

Im angry now because after they pulled out I booked my flight to Australia with Air France from Shannon through Paris but now I could have booked with Aer Lingus through Singapore Airlines out of Heathrow for cheaper. I would have been going on the 1st April so this would have been perfect for me.

Kablam

I hope someone in AL get a right kick up the hole for that f**k up, But I’d
say they'll probably get a pay increase:mad:. That's the problem with this
country no one is accountable for anything anymore if you f**k up you
pay the price maybe just a bollicking but never the less you shouldn’t get
off Scott free.

MarkR

The CE was saying yesterday not to thank Ryan Air for the change. I wonder will anyone thank Aer Lingus for this?

Comhrá

I never thought I'd be thanking Ml. O'Leary for anything but IMHO, he's the reason EI are back on the SNN- LHR route. Scared Mannion into the U-turn.

Even so, it's a bit of a bare-bones service.......early morning and late evening arrivals and deps. from Shannon..... maybe ok for business people but hardly much use if you are hoping to catch a connecting flight to Shannon when returning from the Far East or Australia, arriving into Heathrow at 8am and then you have to sit around Heathrow all day to connect on to Shannon.

Also, if you need to connect onwards from Heathrow for a long-haul evening flight, you have to be leaving Shannon early and face a day-long sit at lovely Heathrow. Just my tuppence worth, but maybe I'm overly cynical at this time of year :-)

John.

ninty9er

Things like this don't get done in a weekend. it takes a lot of planning. AL are unlikely to have been able to negotiate the new deal with SAA between the time Ryanair launched a bid and the announcement.

AL didn't U-Turn. It moved giving an excuse to slash staff costs at Shannon and now is coming back with no staff and cheaper airport charges. This is what it was all about in the first place.

MO'L had nothing to do with it. If they sign over HR slots to the Minister for Transport (as opposed to the shareholder:rolleyes: - Minister for Finance) then you can thank MO'L for that.

This was just a smart business operation, the same as not spending the floatation money on aircraft at the top of the order market, AL can strip aircraft from liquidated airlines next year.

galwayrush

I always felt they only left to go to Belfast as part of Bertie being generous to Norn Iron as part of the peace process.:rolleyes:

Aidric

I welcome connectivity to Heathrow being re-opened.

Berty

galwayrush wrote: »

I always felt they only left to go to Belfast as part of Bertie being generous to Norn Iron as part of the peace process.:rolleyes:

I did what now?

ninty9er

Aidric wrote: »

I welcome connectivity to Heathrow being re-opened.

It was never lost, it just required a stop in Dublin, much like buses to Dublin stopping in every effing backwater along the way.

Liam Byrne

Despite their "it's back now, so let's forget about it" interviews, it still doesn't get the shareholders off the hook for refusing to oppose it.

They want it to in advance of the local elections next year, but we don't forget that easily.

I'm currently torn between quizzing the doorsteppers on their f**kups and incompetency, or slamming the door in their faces.

Guess I've a few months to decide.....

parsi

It's life - get over it.

Nobody screamed about Ryanair dropping SNN-DUB http://blog.despod.com/2008/03/rynair-gets-away-with-it-but-aer-lingus.html

Now EI have decided that the SNN-LHR service is viable (despite the fact that no other airline tried to fil the gap) folk seem determined to criticise them...

Liam Byrne

parsi wrote: »

Now EI have decided that the SNN-LHR service is viable (despite the fact that no other airline tried to fil the gap) folk seem determined to criticise them...

Not quite the full story. AL / EI ditched a profit-making (small profit, but profit nonetheless) uncontested route to move to a more competitive, loss-making route outside of the country.

So it couldn't have been a commercial decision.

And the Government refused to act, despite being a shareholder.

Yes, it's good that they're back, but a lot of the damage (to the region and to their credibility) has been done.

badboyblast

tippman1 wrote: »

I never thought I'd be thanking Ml. O'Leary for anything but IMHO, he's the reason EI are back on the SNN- LHR route. Scared Mannion into the U-turn.

Even so, it's a bit of a bare-bones service.......early morning and late evening arrivals and deps. from Shannon..... maybe ok for business people but hardly much use if you are hoping to catch a connecting flight to Shannon when returning from the Far East or Australia, arriving into Heathrow at 8am and then you have to sit around Heathrow all day to connect on to Shannon.

Also, if you need to connect onwards from Heathrow for a long-haul evening flight, you have to be leaving Shannon early and face a day-long sit at lovely Heathrow. Just my tuppence worth, but maybe I'm overly cynical at this time of year :-)

John.

Your dead right, the flight time are useless for the far east because everything leaves in the evening!!!!!!!

:mad:

Berty

badboyblast wrote: »

Your dead right, the flight time are useless for the far east because everything leaves in the evening!!!!!!!

:mad:

Nope, leave SNN to LHR on the early flight and catch the Singapore Airlines flight at 11:55 to Singapore and onwards from there.

I was trying to book this the other day from SNN on the 1st April but Air France would not give me even half my money back so I gave up on that. Now I have to go 6:40pm to CDG and onwards to Singapore - Perth.

Its not soo bad.

old boy

on a travel agency window on colombus ave n.y.c. monday afternoon (28th),
j.f.k. to dublin 359 u.s.d. round trip, i assume thoes of us who pay on this side are subsidising this.

lfc1892

ninty9er wrote: »

Things like this don't get done in a weekend. it takes a lot of planning. AL are unlikely to have been able to negotiate the new deal with SAA between the time Ryanair launched a bid and the announcement.

The negotiation went like this

AL - We want to open new routes from Shannon to Heathrow

SAA - Fair enough then.

How long did that take? If it was a question of landing fees or gates, well, Shannon has a lot of empty gates and I'm sure they have standard landing fees. The refuelling and baggage handling is already in place so I can't see why it would take longer than the conversation above.

The return to Shannon appears to be a deal struck with the Government in return for their vote against a Ryanair takeover, or at least that's my belief.

ninty9er

old boy wrote: »

on a travel agency window on colombus ave n.y.c. monday afternoon (28th),
j.f.k. to dublin 359 u.s.d. round trip, i assume thoes of us who pay on this side are subsidising this.

The US starting point prices exclude taxes and charges, the Irish ones include taxes and charges

@lfc: not quite that simple, and there was still the issue of a high staff cost.